Choice Modeling: A New Approach to Valuation of Environmental Commodity; Case Study: Ganjnameh, Hamadan

Choice experiment as a subset of choice modeling approach is the newest method for calculating the value of non-market goods and estimating individuals’ preferences in dealing with environmental goods. This study evaluates the individual preferences for different characteristics of the historical - recreational Ganjnameh site of Hamadan based on Lancastrian value theory and stochastic utility function. It uses the choice experiment، the conditional Logit model with Weibull (Gumbel) distribution of disturbance terms and Housman- Mac Fadden method for testing Heteroskedasticity and equality of cross elasticities among options of a choice set. The welfare effects of proposed policies can be computed using estimated willingness-to-pay for different levels of characteristics of an environmental good. Sampling was performed randomly among native and non-native tourists in summer 2011. About 216 out of 300 questionnaires were correctly completed that led to the 1296 observations in 3888 data lines. Results indicate that people have relatively high willingness-to-pay for policies adopted to preserve and improve the quality of various characteristics of ecosystem goods. People have the highest willingness-to-pay for preserving the ancient monuments، environmental health، cleanness of river water and maintaining forest diversity and natural landscape، respectively. The socio-economic variables such as age، being married، parenting، education levels، monthly household expenditure and locality result in increasing WTP.